Thomas and The Giant's Castle

The sun rose early in the blue sky. The bright, warm sunlight washed in through Thomas’s bedroom window and woke the little boy up. Thomas was two years and five months old. Thomas lived with his mummy and daddy in a town called Marbella in the south of Spain.

Thomas and his mummy, daddy and their little white dog Penny were all visiting his Mi Ma and his Pi Pa at their beautiful home in Portugal. Mi Ma and Pi Pa lived near a little town called San Bras on the Algarve. The house was set on the side of a little hill and over looked some farmland.

The farm contained a few animal animals, there were four big, brown cows, that lived in a crumbly old barn and there was also a flock of twenty sheep that lived on the hillside. Mostly however the farm grew beautiful, juicy oranges and bitter green olives.

If you were feeling energetic and you climbed all the way to the top of the little hill, you could see the Atlantic ocean, glinting brightly far off in the distance.
Or if you were in the mood you could sit down on the soft green grass, smelling the wild rosemary and thyme on the breeze and spend an hour or so watching the planes landing at Faro airport, each one full of happy holiday makers. Thomas loved watching the big silver planes roaring by, high in the clear, blue sky. Thomas would always wave to the airplanes as they flew over and he wondered if anyone ever waved back.

Thomas jumped up out of bed, yawned and rubbed his eyes. He could hear Pedro the shepherd, calling to the sheep over on the hillside just by the green fig trees. The sheep loved eating the green figs that has fallen from the trees and resting in the cool shade that the very useful trees provided.
Thomas’s daddy also loved eating the green figs and he usually had two or three for breakfast as well as a bowl of cereal and his toast with honey. Mi Ma and Pi Pa would pick some of the ripe figs for daddy when they took Bella and Donna, their dogs for the morning walk.

Bella and Donna were one of the reasons that Thomas just loved visiting his Mi Ma and Pi Pa. Bella was a very energetic, young Portuguese Water Spaniel and Donna was an older, brown dog and she was at least a little part Alsatian. Both of the dogs were at their happiest when they were playing in the warm sunshine with Thomas. The strange thing was that Donna did not get on at all with Penny. No one knew why it was just the way it was.

Pi Pa also had tons of fantastical interesting things that Thomas just loved, Pi Pa had a silver Nissan jeep and he would let Thomas sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to drive it. Pi Pa also had a great big BMW motor bike, that lived in the garage. Once Pi Pa let Thomas sit on the motor bike and he started the big, noisy engine up. Brrrrmm! Brrrmmm! Went the engine. Thomas got quite a fright until he got used to it.

Thomas rushed out of his bedroom at full speed and just stopping for one moment in the kitchen to kiss his Mi Ma good morning, he went and sat down at the big round breakfast table. The breakfast table was on the terrace just by the swimming pool that Thomas would be swimming in later on in the day. The terrace tiles were made from reddish bricks that never got too hot to walk on.

Daddy and mummy came outside to sit at the table, mummy kissed Thomas good morning and Thomas’s daddy gave him a great big, good morning hug.
When Mi Ma and Pi Pa came to join them all at the table, Mi Ma picked up her newspaper and read an article. It was all about the historic castle, that had been standing in the town for seven hundred years.

Mi Ma poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip of the hot liquid, ‘Thomas,’ said Mi Ma, taking another sip of her tea, ‘how would you like to visit the old castle in the town today?’

Well, this got Thomas’s attention. Thomas was very, very interested in castles. In fact, castles were one of Thomas’s favorite things. Thomas knew for instance, that even the most boring castles would have at least a princess held captive in a high tower. Thomas knew that most good castles had at least one dragon down in the dungeon as well as the princess being held in the high tower.
Thomas also knew that some of the better castles would almost certainly have a witch or two running about as well as the princess in the tower and the dragon in the dungeon and Thomas knew that the very best castles in the world had to have the dragon ( a properly fierce one with two heads), the princess (she had to be asleep for at least one hundred years and very beautiful), the witches (green and always turning people into frogs etc) but most importantly the very best castles just had to be built by an enormous giant. Giants always built the the very best type of castles.

‘Yes, please, Mi Ma.’ said Thomas with a big grin spreading over his face. He could already feel the excitement building in him.

So after a breakfast of homemade marmalade (Mi Ma) on home made bread (Pi Pa), Thomas, Mi Ma, Pi Pa, daddy, mummy and Penny all climbed aboard Pi Pa’s silver jeep and set of for the old town of Loulé. Soon they had parked the jeep on the top floor of the multi story car-park and were all headed into the center of the town.

On the way to the castle they had to pass through the indoor market, in here the locals sold all manner of food. There was white, stiff salt cod, huge sword fish and there was bright, locally produced fruit. Mi Ma did nearly all of her shopping in this old market. Thomas was still quite little so daddy lifted him up onto his shoulders. Thomas sat way above the crowd and imagined that he was a giant. Thomas just knew that the castle in would have been built by a giant long ago. He could not wait to get to the castle. Fruit and fish were all very well, but really they could not compete with a real live castle.

Once they had all walked through the market, Thomas could see the castle. It was just huge and made from massive blocks of granite.The towers soared up, up into the blue sky. It looked to Thomas as if the towers finished way above the clouds.

At last they were all at the castle, mummy, penny, Mi, Ma and Pi, Pa all went for a coffee, leaving just daddy and Thomas to explore the giants castle. Hard though it is to believe you actually had to bye a ticket to get into this particular giant’s castle. This did mean that the castle was in fairly good condition. You have to remember that this castle as stood in Loulé for over seven hundred years.

Thomas and daddy clutched their tickets and walked through a huge doorway that lead to an enormous flight of wooden steps. Up they went. At the top of the steps stood a very old witch. ‘TICKETS!’ She yelled in a deep, growly voice that would have actually done a real giant proud. Thomas and daddy handed over the tickets and the ancient witch, who was a little on the green side, she ripped the tickets in half before handing them back to daddy.
‘ ENJOY YOUR VISIT!’ cackled the witch.

‘Thank you.’ Said Thomas and daddy. At the top of the stairs there were two rooms, one to the left and one to the right. You could also walk forwards and outside onto the castle’s ramparts. Thomas and daddy decided to tackle the room to the right first. This was a good choice as the room was in fact the giant’s castle. This giant was particularly fond of baking and had that very morning baked a chocolate cake ( a huge chocolate cake the size of a tractor tyre) and left it to cool in the center of his enormous kitchen table.
‘Daddy,’ asked Thomas ‘what is that delicious smell?’ he said licking his lips. You see Thomas like his daddy (and mummy) just loved chocolate cake.

‘It’s up here on the table.’ Replied daddy. Thomas’s daddy lifted Thomas up so that he could see the cake. The table was so enormous that Thomas could not see the cake from the floor. In fact daddy could only see the cake by jumping up as high as he could a peering over the edge of the table.

‘Daddy, do you think that the price of the ticket includes a tiny bit of that chocolate cake?’ Asked Thomas with a cheeky grin on his face.

‘I would imagine so.’ replied daddy with a similar grin to Thomas’s on his face.

Daddy lifted Thomas up as hi as he could. Thomas scrabbled onto the table. He picked up knife that was lying on the table. The knife was the size of a good sized sword. Thomas swung the knife in the direction of the chocolate cake and cut two portions. He walked over to the edge of the table and looked down at his daddy.

Thomas jumped down into his daddy’s arms. They both sat on the stone floor and ate the chocolate cake with a great deal of satisfaction. It was a fantastic bit of chocolate cake.

After that Thomas and daddy thought that they would explore the room on the left of the staircase. This was a fantastic room. This was the giant’s treasure house. Huge gold coins the size of bicycle wheel lay under glass lids. Valuable books lined all the walls. Thomas knew that one of these books would be the giants spell book. Giants were always using spells to put princess in to deep 100 year long sleeps.

‘Daddy, said Thomas ‘do you think that the price of a ticket includes a couple of these gold coins?’.

‘No,’ said daddy, ‘ I am sure that the price of the ticket does not include a couple of these coins.’ Daddy ruffled Thomas’s blonde hair. They both had a good look at the treasure. The gold coins were accompanied by diamonds the size of tennis balls and rubies the size of golf balls.

‘Daddy, how do you think that the giant got all this treasure?’, asked Tom.

Daddy had a think about it and said ‘ Well Thomas, I imagine that this giant stole all this treasure from an unlucky king. He probably kidnapped the king’s daughter as well. I imagine that we will find her asleep upstairs in one of the towers.’

Thomas digested this information. ‘Daddy, we must save the princess from the giant. If we rescue her, I am sure that the king will reward us with lots of this treasure.’

So it was decided. Daddy put on his bravest face. So did Thomas. They walked back to the staircase, waved hello to the guardian and headed out the door towards the castle ramparts. When they got out side they were standing beside a huge stone tower. Each block of stone was about the size of mummy’s car.

Suddenly Thomas and Daddy heard a long, low and particularly vicious growl. Not a growl like a dog’s growl, not a growl like a lion’s growl. This growl could only belong to one thing. A dragon. A two headed dragon.
Daddy and Thomas stood frozen with fear. They looked at one and other, and started to climb the stone stairs up towards the dragon. As Thomas and his daddy climbed higher up the tower staircase the growling turned into more of a blood curdling roar. That old dragon was obviously guarding the princess at the top of the stairs.

What could Thomas and his daddy do? Thomas and his daddy ran back to the treasure room. They pulled down the most likely looking book and looked up a spell for putting things to sleep. Thomas found one. Thomas read out the spell and before he knew what was happening, his daddy fell to the floor as fast asleep as anyone Thomas had ever seen. Tom quickly looked up the remedy to the spell. Daddy woke up with a sleepy smile, yawned and said, ‘OK. Thomas, lets go fix that old dragon.’

Up and up they climbed. Louder and louder the dragon roared. Thomas peeked around the last corner of the staircase. Sure enough this dragon had two heads. This was an extremely scary dragon. Daddy put his fingers in his ears and Thomas shouted out the spell as loudly as he could. The two headed dragon (the dragon was called Simon) stopped roaring, lay down and went to sleep like a kitten.
Thomas and his daddy had to actually climb over the dragon. It was a cold and scaly dragon and little jets of flame shot from both of its noses as it lay there gently snoring.

On the other side of the dragon was a huge wooden door. It was not locked as no one was ever expected to get past Simon. Thomas and his daddy pushed the door open with all of their strength. The hinges were very rusted and made all most as much noise as Simon had been making.
In the room it was very dark. Thomas went to the window and pulled the curtains open. Thomas’s eyes widened, there outside on a roof no too far away was the giant. The giant was busily building a new part of the castle. He Like all giants was huge. He was more than three times taller than daddy. He was piling stone on top of stone to form a new wall.

Thomas jumped back. Daddy was looking at the princess, she was very beautiful. Her name was etched into a gold bracelet that she had on her wrist. ‘Princess Alana.’

‘Come on Tom, Kiss her,’ said daddy. ‘ I think that the mean old dragon is waking up!’

Now Thomas, like most little boys was not too keen on kissing any girls, especially those little girls that had been asleep for nearly 100 years and could do with a bit of a bath and the use of a tooth brush. But Thomas knew his duty he had after all been read all the fairy stories by mummy and daddy. Thomas leant over the sleeping princess and heroically kissed her on the cheek. Nothing happened!

Simon the dragon was now almost fully awake. He was not too happy about being sent to sleep by a magic spell. He roared from both his mouths and started galloping towards the room containing daddy, Thomas and the still sleeping princess. Fire shot from Simon’s nose just as Thomas’s daddy managed to close the wooden door using all his strength.

Thomas,’ yelled daddy above Simon’s roaring, ‘ you have to kiss her on the lips?
‘No way,’ snarled Thomas, looking a little bit like a two headed dragon himself.

‘Do it, now' shouted daddy, ‘or we will literally be toast.’
So Thomas did. The affect was immediate and surprising. The Princess Alana opened her eyes and seeing Thomas let out a little scream. Simon the dragon turned back into the Princess’s mummy and daddy. The castle witch had turned the king and queen into a two headed dragon called Simon a long time ago. The red statues down stairs in the courtyard turned back into the palace servants and members of the court, the last thing that happened was that the giant stopped working on the castle and started to wonder what on earth was going on in the tall tower. Andrew the giant put down his tools and started to walk towards the tall tower.

Now it is a little known fact that all giants just love to build. The are only bad tempered and mean when they are not allowed to build. Andrew the giant was particularly good at building things. He had started when he was very young, helping his daddy build this very castle. Andrew could build bridges, roads just about anything you could want.
All the witches and all the treasure did not mean that much to Andrew. Most of the treasure gathering had been done by the witches. They just used giants as a shield. I mean everyone always blamed the giants even though the giants spent most of the time busily working away, carving stone or mixing cement.

So when Andrew got to the tall tower he was in a conciliatory mood. He had been looking for an excuse to get rid of the witches and that dragon did keep him awake most nights with it’s insufferable roaring. Andrew had never even seen the princess Alan. He was only little when the witches had cursed the princess and turned the king and the queen into the dragon formally known as Simon. Andrew had just been too busy to sort it all out. That was always the trouble with giants, too much to do.

‘What’s all this noise?’ asked Andrew? Thomas explained how he and his daddy had rescued the princess. Andrew could see how happy the princess and her family were. Andrew felt glad.

‘Listen,’ said Andrew the giant, ‘ I just baked a chocolate cake, why don’t we go into my kitchen and have a slice each and a nice cup of tea?’

‘Good idea,’ said Thomas and his daddy at the same time. Five minutes later, Thomas, his daddy, the king, the queen, the royal princess Alana and Andrew were all munching away on a slice of chocolate cake and sipping tea from enormous mugs. It really was very good cake.
It was soon decided that Andrew would be allowed to carry on working on his castle. He apologized for the behaviour of the castle witches and promised that nothing like that would happen again. Andrew was also appointed as the royal builder and after the king had his third slice of delicious chocolate cake, the royal baker. He was to provide the king and queen with one chocolate cake per week. Andrew was very happy about this as he was sick to death of people running away from him every time they saw him.

The King and Queen then thanked Thomas and his Daddy. The queen told them to pop into the treasure room and help themselves to what ever they wanted. Daddy thought that mummy might like a couple of diamonds the size of gold balls.

It was time to go home. Daddy and Thomas said all their goodbyes to everyone and walked out of the kitchen and back down the enormous wooden staircase.
When they got outside they found Mummy, penny Mi ma and Pi Pa were still sitting in the cafe finishing their coffee and having a chat
‘Hi guys,’ said mummy giving tom a big hug,’ would you like a piece of chocolate cake?’

Thomas and his daddy looked at one and other and started to laugh. ‘No thanks mummy, we have just had some,’ giggled Thomas.

The End